


More Efficient Ways To Do It

by talkingtothesky



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Community: hc_bingo, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Episode: s03e10 The Devil's Share, Episode: s05e10 The Day the World Went Away, Episode: s05e13 Return 0, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 14:45:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12750432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/pseuds/talkingtothesky
Summary: He owed it to them all, to continue on with his life, to make their sacrificemeansomething.Except, he didn't owe them anything, they weredead. They were all dead. And for what?





	More Efficient Ways To Do It

**Author's Note:**

> For the 'suicide attempt' square on my hc_bingo card.
> 
> WARNING for blood and self-harm, hospitals and depressive thoughts. Plus gory details of canonical character deaths. You might want tissues, I made myself cry more than once. Maybe don't read if you're already feeling vulnerable.
> 
> Title is from the Pilot. "I know you've spent the last couple of months trying to drink yourself to death. I know you're contemplating more efficient ways to do it."

 

Had he planned it, he would have succeeded.

Had he planned it, he would have gone somewhere so that Grace would not know what he had done. He should have spared her that, at least.

It was an impulsive act. He wasn't thinking clearly. Hadn't been thinking clearly ever since he left New York. He had hoped distance would grant some respite from the memories, but if anything, it intensified them. Italy was full of history. Throughout his life, Harold's own personal history followed him wherever he went, whoever he became.

He couldn't stop thinking. About Root, breathing her last in the bullet-riddled car as they drove him away from her. The sudden, shocking hole in Elias' forehead, reducing his friend's bright mind to scattered brain matter. Nathan's smile before the blast carried him away. John on that rooftop, waving the briefcase, so unapologetically  _happy_  to die for him. He owed it to them all, to continue on with his life, to make their sacrifice  _mean_  something. 

Except, he didn't owe them anything, they were  _dead_. They were all dead. And for what?

Grace had a meeting at a gallery. She was out. Harold was in the bathroom, shaving with a straight razor, distracted. The gnawing weight of guilt had been difficult to bear. He was thinking about the therapist he'd once been to see, after the ferry.  _You are not god_ , she'd told him, and he thought that was a pity. He wanted to be able to choose who lived or died, instead of just letting the universe take and take and  _take_  from him. Standing there on his uneven, aching legs, watching them fade.

When he nicked himself, he didn't bother to blot the blood away. It was so obvious, suddenly, that he  _could_  choose, and that he deserved to die. He clenched his jaw, repositioned the blade, and pressed harder. He gripped the edge of the sink and kept slicing, until the bloom of the pain overtook the anger and determination. There was a lot of blood, crawling down his neck and splattering into the sink, and then came the fear.

His hands shook uncontrollably, and he dropped the razor, flinging it away from himself in horror. He clutched a towel to the long, deep slice in the side of his neck. His back hit the wall and he slid slowly down, gasping for breath. 

His phone was in his trouser pocket. He called himself an ambulance.

\---

They wouldn't let him go home. They wouldn't let Grace see him. He'd glimpsed her through a window, pressing her hands against the glass so hard her skin went white, her face blotchy with tears. A nurse had led her away, and from that point on they'd kept the blinds closed.

This was hell. He hadn't factored her into his actions at all. He'd grown used to living without her, except as a perfect oasis he could return to in his memories, when the present became too terrible. The reality of hurting her now, after she'd already forgiven him for lying to her, and welcomed him back with open arms...

More guilt. In one selfish moment, he'd ruined the one chance at happiness he had left. 

He wept bitterly. He curled into a ball in the bed, his whole body wracked with sobs. The force of the anguish pouring out of him caused a dull tearing at his freshly-stitched wound. They rushed in to sedate him.

\---

Harold was calmer after that. There was no point fighting it. He just had to submit to whatever the doctors thought best. They had him on suicide watch. They were the real deities in the world, he thought drowsily. They had real power over death. He wished he could persuade them to let him go. But it wasn't his choice. He had no choices, anymore. He just had to exist, and keep existing. 

\---

One night, the Machine appeared on his bedside monitor. FATHER, it said, I HAVE NOT ABANDONED YOU.

Harold reflexively pushed his call button, but the person who came running was not a doctor. Well, she had trained as one.

"Miss Shaw?"

"Quiet, and get dressed. We're breaking you out of here."

"We?" The Machine and Sameen had survived and were working together? 

There wasn't time for questions. Shaw bundled him into a coat and shoes and marched him out of the nearest fire exit.

When they reached the road, Shaw made a beeline for a parked car, opening the rear door for Harold and climbing in after him. In the dark, Harold didn't see the driver until they turned to speak to Shaw. "Are we clear?"

Shaw kept one hand clamped too tightly around Harold's forearm. "Yeah. Drive."

\---

They drove into the countryside, changing cars twice on the way. Harold was so surprised to see the change in Grace, the sheer steel of her demeanor, that he didn't dare speak to her. Of the two of them, Sameen was more forthcoming. She explained how before it died, the Machine had made a backup, a recording to help itself remember everything.

The numbers. The numbers were still running. Sameen had been out there saving them. She wasn't alone. She had help from Logan Pierce, Joey Durban and Harper Rose. 

That car journey - in the dark, over bumpy dirt roads - opened Harold's eyes. It gave him hope. Fierce, blinding, painful hope. 

The same hope he'd forced on John Reese when he plucked him from a police station and offered him a job.

\---

They stayed in someone's summer cottage, abandoned for the winter. Sameen looked after his neck, and the wound continued to heal. He would have a nasty scar. One more for the collection.

Grace had remembered Sameen from New York and searched for her. Asked for her help in arranging his escape. But she refused to speak to Harold. They lived in the tiny cottage, reading books and sharing meals, in awkward silence. Harold only broke it once.

"You're right to be angry with me."

She said, "Yes, I am." They left it at that.

\---

He didn't want to return to New York. Sameen tried to convince him, telling him stories of the new team's recent adventures, but it would be all wrong without John. 

Instead, he sat outside and watched the birds. The garden already had feeders, which they filled. He kept a notebook with a list of species and tallied up how many he saw. He couldn't safely have a phone, so he took pictures with a disposable camera, the type you had to wind. Sometimes he dragged his thumb over the sharp bumps of the wheel a little too hard. He looked at the indentations in his skin and thought in a detached way about self-harm.

Grace knew how to develop the film. She set up a dark room in the shed and stuck the photos on the cottage walls.

One evening, looking at the collection they had made, Grace asked him: "Do you remember when you told me about your father? How he learned all about birds just for you?"

Harold looked at her and nodded. He remembered everything. It was a blessing and a curse. "You said you loved me, no matter what."

\---

Harold had grown a beard, since the hospital. His hair, too, was getting long. It made for a good disguise, and he still wasn't allowed scissors. He tried not to look in the mirror and see John.

\---

Winter turned to spring. Sameen had long since returned to New York. He missed her, but knowing the work continued comforted him more than he'd thought possible.

He and Grace were talking again. They went on long walks, through fields and woods, following streams. It was easier to speak about painful things, with no sharp objects or walls around them, only soil. 

Grace had not painted in months, but she began to try, as the weather improved. Harold was happy for her, and gave her some space and privacy to rediscover her craft. She had taken very good care of him even though he had repeatedly broken her heart. Room to breathe was the least he could give her.

When she brought back a portrait of John, Harold cried in her arms.

\---

It would be another six months before Harold's fingers met a keyboard in Pierce's office. When they did, Harold had one question:

"Why didn't you stop me?"

YOU HAVE FREE WILL. The Machine reminded him.

Harold had chosen to live.


End file.
